Please help find these stolen pens!

On Thursday, May 4th, approximately $40,000 worth of fountain pens (and a few other items) were stolen from my vehicle in Chicago near the Adler Planetarium. A complete list of items and images are provided below. If you happen to come across any of these items, please contact me immediately. There will be a reward for information leading to the recovery of any of the pens listed below.

I’m pretty sure that’s everything. All of our belongings were in the vehicle at the time as we were moving from one hotel to another. Thankfully, we’re all OK (me and my family were not present when it happened) and they did leave our luggage and enough inventory for me to have a decent presence at the Chicago Pen Show. It could have been a lot worse.

We’re waiting on the police report to arrive by mail to file a claim with our insurance company. I’m not expecting much from them, because, well, they’re an insurance company.

Again, any help in recovering any of the pens would be greatly appreciated. The first 13 on the list were from my personal collection that I carried every day. Some will be difficult to replace while others had great sentimental value.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Regards,

Daniel Smith

My personal EDC pens in a Franklin-Christoph Penvelope 13.

Pelikan M1005 demo, 3B two-tone nib

Visconti Homo Sapiens Corsani 90th Anniversary

Visconti Homo Sapiens Corsani 90th Anniversary

Nakaya Naka-ai and Long Piccolo, note the custom character on the barrel of the Long Piccolo.

Nakaya Naka-ai and Long Piccolo, note the custom character on the barrel of the Long Piccolo.

God I wish you the best of luck in finding them, I know how painful it can be sentimentally and monetarily. Personally I would consider the items lost, whatever you get back however is a plus. I had a similar scenario with a bag of mine that had 10 pens a laptop and camera gear, I ended up getting back my camera body, my laptop and a pen, I lost about $25,000 in gear. I wouldn’t​ say loose all hope because you can certainly get them back, just don’t expect them back. Think of it like lending money, you don’t expect to get it back but if you do it’s a wonderful bonus.

I’m so sorry to hear this! I’m assuming you’ve asked Ed at Century Pens to keep an eye out? I could see someone going to him to get an assessment and valuation of something they just bought at a flea market or such.

Did insurance end up helping much? I know some of these were from your personal collection but it looks like a lot were part of your business. Losing personal possessions is painful, but losing things you make a living from selling is scary; inventory isn’t cheap.

I’ll try to send some business your way next time I’m looking for a pen or nib work.